Ayub 9:13

9:13 God does not restrain his anger; ¹ 

under him the helpers of Rahab ²  lie crushed. ³ 

Yesaya 20:3-6

20:3 Later the Lord explained, “In the same way that my servant Isaiah has walked around in undergarments and barefoot for the past three years, as an object lesson and omen pertaining to Egypt and Cush, 20:4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, both young and old. They will be in undergarments and barefoot, with the buttocks exposed; the Egyptians will be publicly humiliated. ⁴  20:5 Those who put their hope in Cush and took pride in Egypt will be afraid and embarrassed. ⁵  20:6 At that time ⁶  those who live on this coast ⁷  will say, ‘Look what has happened to our source of hope to whom we fled for help, expecting to be rescued from the king of Assyria! How can we escape now?’”

Yesaya 31:3

31:3 The Egyptians are mere humans, not God;

their horses are made of flesh, not spirit.

The Lord will strike with ⁸  his hand;

the one who helps will stumble

and the one being helped will fall.

Together they will perish. ⁹ 

Nahum 3:9

3:9 Cush ¹⁰  and Egypt had limitless strength; ¹¹ 

Put and the Libyans ¹²  were among ¹³  her ¹⁴  allies. ¹⁵ 

[9:13]  ¹ sn The meaning of the line is that God’s anger will continue until it has accomplished its purpose (23:13-14).

[9:13]  ² sn “Rahab” is not to be confused with the harlot of the same name from Jericho. “Rahab” is identified with Tiamat of the Babylonian creation epic, or Leviathan of the Canaanite myths. It is also used in parallelism to the sea (26:12), or the Red Sea (Ps 74:13), and so comes to symbolize Egypt (Isa 30:7). In the Babylonian Creation Epic there is reference to the helpers of Tiamat. In the Bible the reference is only to the raging sea, which the Lord controlled at creation.

[9:13]  ³ tn The verb שָׁחַח (shakhakh) means “to be prostrate” or “to crouch.” Here the enemies are prostrate under the feet of God – they are crushed.

[20:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “lightly dressed and barefoot, and bare with respect to the buttocks, the nakedness of Egypt.”

[20:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “and they will be afraid and embarrassed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their beauty.”

[20:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV).

[20:6]  ⁷ sn This probably refers to the coastal region of Philistia (cf. TEV).

[31:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “will extend”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV “stretch out.”

[31:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “together all of them will come to an end.”

[3:9]  ¹⁰ sn Cush is the Hebrew name for the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia (also known as Nubia) along the Nile valley south of Aswan in Egypt. Many modern English versions render this “Ethiopia,” but this area is not to be confused with modern Ethiopia (i.e., Abyssinia).

[3:9]  ¹¹ tn Or “Cush was limitless and Egypt was strong.” The NIV treats the two nations (“Cush and Egypt”) as a hendiadys of the predicate and translates them as one clause. On the other hand, NJPS treats them separately and translates them in two different clauses.

[3:9]  ¹² tn Heb “Lubim.” Most modern English versions render this as “Libya” or “the Libyans.”

[3:9]  ¹³ tn The preposition בְּ (bet) in בְּעֶזְרָתֵךְ (bÿ’ezratekh) should probably be taken as a bet of identity rather than in a locative sense (DCH 2:84 s.v. בְּ 7; HALOT 104 s.v. בְּ 3).

[3:9]  ¹⁴ tc Although the LXX and Syriac read a 3 fs suffix, the 2 fs suffix on MT בְּעֶזְרָתֵךְ (bÿ’ezratekh, “your strength”) should be retained because of the support of 4QpNah, which reads בעזרתך. The MT is the more difficult reading and best explains the origin of the variants, which attempt to harmonize with the preceding 3 fs suffix.

[3:9]  tn Heb “your strength.”

[3:9]  sn This is an example of enallage – a figure of speech in which a speaker addresses a party who is not present. Here, the prophet Nahum addresses the city of Thebes.

[3:9]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew noun עָזָר (’azar) has been understood in two ways: (1) In the light of the Ugaritic root gzr (“hero, valiant one, warrior”), several scholars posit the existence of the Hebrew root II עָזַר (“warrior”), and translate בְּעֶזְרָתֵךְ (bÿ’ezratekh) as “in your army” (M. Dahood, Psalms, 1:210; P. Miller, “Ugaritic GZR and Hebrew `ZR II,” UF 2 [1970]: 168). (2) It is better to relate the Hebrew עָזָר to Canaanite izirtu (“military help”) which appears several times in the El-Amarna correspondence: “Let him give you soldiers and chariots as help for you so that they may protect the city” (EA 87:13) and “I have provided help for Tyre” (EA 89:18); see K. J. Cathcart, “More Philological Studies in Nahum,” JNWSL 7 (1979): 11.